A lot of the stigma surrounding mental health deals with the baggage we carry because of the journey we are on. It's entirely possible that by sharing these parts of me, I'm causing some people to choose to not engage with me. People who don't understand mental illness often don't want to deal with the extra energy that it can take to be in a relationship with someone who suffers from anxiety or depression or bi polar disorder.
Honestly, that's a risk I'm willing to take.
I'm already a lot to deal with. I'm high energy, high expectations - I'm the definition of extra. My anxiety is the least of my concerns when it comes to what makes me a lot to invest in.
However, I can definitely see how suffering from a mental illness can make one self conscious when it comes to relationships. It is a little bit harder, a little bit more work to love someone who ebbs and flows. Who has unexplained anxiety. Irrational fears. Our stories are a bit more colorful.
I guess I look at it like this: my anxiety is a big part of who I am. While it does not control my life, it does accentuate it, and if someone doesn't get that part of me, they're not for me.
Certainly during times when I'm not managing my anxiety well I'm probably harder to love. For the most part, I'm actively engaged in managing my mental health and its not an issue. But my anxiety, the things that have happened to give me the anxiety, all of it makes me who I am. If you can't come to terms with embracing those pieces of me, you don't get to have the rest of me.
If you are in a relationship with someone who suffers from a mental illness, or you suffer from one yourself, the key to success is communication. Be open and transparent about what you are dealing with, what your triggers are, how you are working to manage, and how your partner can best support you.
What is never acceptable is to allow mental health to dictate the terms of your relationship. You cannot blame it for problems. You cannot use it as an excuse. And you cannot tolerate emotional or physical abuse because of it. These are always unacceptable.
Where you can accept it is when its a trigger or in a bad place. Understand that your partner is struggling and as long as they're working to control that, be a source of support. Continue to remind them they're wonderful and more than their mental illness. Encourage them to keep committed to treatment, whatever that looks like for them.
I get it, I come with extra baggage, but when you think about it, don't we all? I don't know a lot of people who come with a clean slate in a relationship. For some, it's trust issues. For others, it's insecurity. And for me, it's my anxiety. The point is, we all carry baggage. Mental illness just seems scarier because it's medical and has so much stigma surrounding it.
If I lose out on a partner because of it, that's the wrong partner for me. And if you lose out because of your baggage, that's not the right partner for you. We are all carrying around different size bags. It's about finding someone to help carry your bag for you. To me, a real partnership is sharing each other's bags and finding that it all evens out because of the teamwork we've committed to bring to the table.